Recently we took a long hard look at what we consider to be one of the best value NVIDIA GeForce GTX1080Ti and yes it was a controversial pick. Yes we read all your emails. Yes we understand the counter-arguments why ‘X is better’. We simply disagree in the one area that matters the most: value. That is why we spent our own money on ‘that card’ and only used a much, much ‘better’ FTW 3 as only a counterpoint. We fully expect this article to generate just as much controversy. Possibly even more. The reason for this is simple: as a class the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070Ti was met with pretty much ambivalence by the general public… and the EVGA GeForce GTX 1070Ti SuperClocked Black Edition is not the top-tier card in its class. Furthermore, after going on and on about the benefits of the new ICX cooler used on the 1080Ti SC BE… the 1070Ti SC BE uses an ACX cooling solution. That combination is however precisely why we have chosen it.
To understand our reasoning, and seemingly be actively courting controversy, a few key things have to be taken into account. The largest and most important is that we care about value more than anything else. We could not care less about prestige, or only using the ‘best of the best’. We are cold and analytical when it comes to our personal purchases – and yes the EVGA 1070Ti SC BE (as we are going to call it for brevity’s sake) is another card that we felt strongly enough about to spend our own money on. EVGA had no say in the matter. We did not even contact them. We just bought a great example (but not the only one) of what the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070Ti is and was meant to be.
Value is a rather abstract idea that does vary from person to person. To some every single micro-second saved is money well spent… as time is literally money to these professionals. Others it every tenth of a frame per second… as they have the money to not worry about anything else and do not plan on upgrading for years to come. Most however will agree with our basic definition: the best bang for your buck possible. In the coming months the 1070Ti class of cards are going to be going up for grabs at rock bottom prices… and the EVGA 1070Ti SC BE is going to be sold by – mostly by less knowledgeable people – for prices not much more than factory ‘reference’ models. As we will show you… this is not some Nvidia reference card with less than optimal abilities. Its not ‘the best’ but the differences are probably not going to matter all that much to most people.
Next, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070Ti got a pretty bad rap. Even before it landed there was a certain vocal group of people slagging it. With rumors ranging from ‘no overclocking’ on down. The fact of the matter is the combination of only 128 less CUDA cores than a GTX 1080 (2560 vs 2432), the same number of ROPS (64) and nearly the same number texture units (152 vs 160) but with arguably better memory (GDDR5 vs ‘improved’ GDDR5X) than the 1080 makes this odd-ball late addition to NVIDIA’s 10-series lineup a veritable no-brainer for those on a more modest budget. This class overclocks nicely and the RAM can be boosted into the stratosphere compare to the rather limited abilities of GDDR5X used in the typical GTX 1080 card.
Mix in a custom cooling solution that is by very dint of when it was released is post “ACX fix”… and there are very few worries over getting a dud cooler… even if you overclock the snot out of the card and run it 24/7 mining that sweet, sweet alt coin. This is why we have focused in on this card in particular and the GTX 1070Ti in general – as they make justifying the leap to the 1080 darn difficult at retail prices and will be downright hard at rock bottom pricing. So sit back, relax and see why we think this is one of the select few 1070Ti’s we are willing to spend our own money on.
